


The Matter of London Below

by kali



Category: Neverwhere - Gaiman
Genre: M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:10:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kali/pseuds/kali
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Marquis pays an old debt, Richard learns a valuable lesson, and some legends come to life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Matter of London Below

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trobadora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/gifts).



> A special thank you to D. who defeated the Demon of the Blank Page for me. Another thank you to Trobadora for a lovely prompt. Happy Yuletide! And my deepest apologies to the City of London which I have warped to fit this story.

Water dripped from the walls in a slow, steady ooze as the rat-speaker crept along the tunnel. Strange, glowing moss illuminated the way in fitful bursts, deepening the shadows. The man's beady little eyes looked this way and that as he advanced, peering into the darkness, alert with fear. He paused at a crossways, lifted his head from side to side as if to sniff the air. Unable to decide which branch to take, Duggard – for that was his name – looked nervously down at his fist, where he was clutching something tightly; he could see that, despite his best efforts, a faint whitish glow was visible between his clenched fingers, and he swallowed convulsively.

"Hmmm… what a lovely little shiny you have there."

The voice, soft with malice and light with mirth, came out of nowhere. Duggard jerked, flattened himself against the slimy wall, bared his teeth, and hissed.

"Now, now, my friend," said the voice from the shadows. "And, we _are_ friends, aren't we, sweet Duggard? I certainly hope so. I would hate to think of us as enemies. But where was I? Oh yes. There's no need to be like that. Hissing is so… hmm, I was going to say beneath us, but I realize now, it's only beneath me, and quite at your level. So, carry on."

Duggard stared hard into the green tinged darkness; just barely, he could begin to make out a form. "Marquis?" he guessed, his voice shaking.

"How terribly perceptive of you!"

"Wh-what do you want?"

"To collect my favor, of course." The bright grin suddenly flashed out of the darkness, revealing the glint of sharp, white teeth and Duggard's heart went cold.

"But that was years ago!"

"Yes," agreed the marquis. "Tell me, do you think it's grown with time?"

"No!" Duggard exclaimed hurriedly. Trying to sound jovial, but only managing to sound manic, he went on. "Right then, it's a favor you're owed, and a favor you'll have, quick as you please. Tell me what it is."

"Why, can't you guess?"

"A message delivered?" he asked hopefully, easing his hand behind his back as he spoke. "Bit of spying done? A body disposed of with nary a trace?"

"Oh, no. Nothing so complicated. All I want is that lovely little shiny you're so pathetically trying to hide from me."

Blanching, Duggard backed away. "What, this? I can't. M'Lord Rat-Speaker will—"

"Not really my problem, now is it?" the marquis said gently.

"It's too much," he protested. "The favor I owed you wasn't that big."

"Too much!? Not that big!? She was your _sister_… and you say it's too much?"

De Carabas stepped forward, his coat swirling, and he put out his hand. The little man looked about him frantically, searching for a way out, help, something. Seeing none of these in the immediate vicinity, he reluctantly handed it over.

"Thank you," said the marquis, his hand closing over the glowing object so swiftly, it almost seemed to vanish.

"What will I do now?" Duggard said, his voice a plaintive squeak.

The marquis looked at him quizzically. "Well, I _could_ make a suggestion. But then you'd owe me another favor, wouldn't you?" At the responding hiss, he added, "Oh, all right then. Just a small one. Miniscule, really."

Growling deep in his throat, Duggard considered briefly. Then, "Fine," he spat.

The marquis grinned again. "Hide," he advised, and with that, he was gone.

The Floating Market was at the Tower that night, and from between the jewels and crowns, arms and armor, makeshift stalls bustled with the ebb and flow of trade. As he passed by a stall whose sign declared – in a diverse assembly of cut-out letters, stuck together like a kidnapper's note – "GEt yoUr fRogG'S MeAd hEre", the marquis heard someone clearing his throat behind him, in an unassuming-yet-somehow-pointed way.

"Hello, Richard," he said, without turning to look. "Frog in your throat?"

"Hello," said the Warrior of London Below, his voice still muffled, falling in beside him. "Potted salmon sandwich, actually. Want one? I've got extra."

"Has no one ever told you it's the height of impoliteness to talk with your mouth full? The Lady Door, perhaps?"

Richard laughed. "She doesn't care. And neither do you. Why are you trying to distract me? What are you up to?"

"A bit of this, and a little of that. And, if you'll excuse me, Richard, you're -- how shall I put this? -- rather in the way. I'm sure you've got something better to do than-"

"Not really," Richard interrupted, continuing to keep pace with him. "And now I'm curious. We like to have some idea of what you're doing."

"Do you?" he said silkily. "My business is my own, and I'm sure I needn't remind you that you and the House of the Arch still owe me a significant favor."

Richard looked at him levelly. "True," he said. "Are you calling that in?"

"My, how we've grown!" the marquis said with mock astonishment. "No, I don't suppose I am. Not for something small like this. Come along then, if you like."

"Thanks," said Richard. "Don't mind if I do."

He followed the marquis -- who'd quickened his stride till Richard had to trot to keep up --through the crowds on Tower Green. As he hurried along, he heard an oddly harsh squawk, and turned to see a raven staring intently at him, as if trying to tell him something. He paused.

"Er… did you want something?" he asked. "I'm afraid I don't speak, er… Raven."

The raven flapped its wings at him.

"I'm sorry," Richard said. "I'm a bit busy at the moment, but if you—" He looked up to see the marquis disappearing through the door into the Salt Tower, and stopped mid-sentence. "Look, I've really got to be going, but find me again later, all right?"

He ran after the marquis, and caught up with him climbing the winding stair, which cramped and claustrophobic as it was, still had sellers squeezed on every third or fourth step, even if only a peddler with her coat open to show rows of hanging folded paper stars, or assorted pins and needles stuck into a cloth.

"Thanks for waiting," Richard panted, as sarcastically as he could.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but were you invited along? If you're going to spy on me, you'll have to learn not to get so easily distracted."

"A raven wanted to tell me something. I think."

"Oh?" the marquis said with supreme disinterest.

"I mean, I'm not sure. I don't speak Raven. Yet."

"Imagine my surprise."

Richard shrugged. "I don't suppose you do?"

"I might," de Carabas said. "And then again, I might not."

Richard shook his head. They climbed all the way to the upper chamber, and there by the window, sat an old man, playing "The Man Who Sold the World" on a set of steel drums, seemingly unaware of what was either an especially clothed orgy or an especially naked wrestling match, or perhaps some kind of interpretive dance.

They waited till he was done, and someone else had begun playing Christmas carols on an accordion. Then, Richard followed the marquis, who walked up to the drums, and bowed to the old man.

"Master Blaise," he said.

Richard blinked, and then bowed as well, the movement still slightly awkward.

"Well, de Carabas, you made it," the old man said. He looked at Richard and lifted an eyebrow. "And you brought the Warrior?"

"Not brought so much as was escorted by. For some reason, it seems I'm not altogether trusted," the marquis replied, doing his best impression of exaggerated innocence, which wasn't, Richard thought, all that good.

"I wouldn't say that, exactly," Richard interjected.

"Wouldn't you?"

"I might mean it," he said, "but I wouldn't _say_ it."

"Ahh," said the marquis. "Well, that's all right, then."

Blaise grinned at Richard. "Probably wise," he said. "Have to watch him every second, or he'll be making off with the teeth right out of your mouth." Then to the marquis, "Have you got it?"

"I might," the marquis said. "If I did, what would I be doing with it?"

"Use it," Blaise said.

"Use it," the marquis repeated, without expression.

"The future is now."

Richard looked from Blaise to the marquis, who looked oddly discomposed. "Are you sure?" he said.

"It's time," the old man said, and pulled two black feathers out from his pocket and offered them to the marquis, who didn't take them. He added, "We'll consider your debt paid, in full."

"And anything I… pick up along the way?"

"Yours to keep, of course," Blaise said. The marquis shrugged and accepted the feathers, as Blaise took up his sticks again and began to pound out the opening notes to Queen's "One Vision".

The marquis bowed again, and melted towards the doorway leading to the stairs. Richard nodded to the old man, who ignored him, and followed. He caught up with the marquis at the foot of the stairs.

"Are you going to tell me what that was about?" Richard asked.

The marquis lifted an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

"And if I told you that I'd have to tag along, if you didn't?" He nodded to the raven, who seemed to have been joined by three of its friends.

"I suppose I can't stop you," he said irritably.

Richard sighed. Spending time fencing your way through a conversation with the marquis was a little bit like trying to get a foothold on quicksand – slow, hopeless, and ultimately, you ended up covered in muck.

"Well, I'm coming then," he said. "I wanted to talk to you anyway."

The marquis smiled like a shark. "And now we get to it. What did you want, Richard?"

"It's not so much what I _want_… I just thought. You know, after everything. We, Door and I… we've been…" he trailed off.

"Yes?" the marquis said.

"Well, you helped us. Above and beyond the call, you might say. And you came back for me, and I thought–"

"What, did you think we were friends, Richard?"

_You can trust him, Richard_, Door had said. _As long as you don't turn your back on him._ "I did a bit, yeah," he said. "And I thought, maybe you'd like to help us."

"Unite the Underside," he drawled.

"Right, yes. Exactly."

"Why?" the marquis asked.

"What do you mean?" Richard asked.

"Any number of things. Perhaps the least important, why should London Below be united?"

Richard stopped in his tracks. "Well,…" he fumbled. It occurred to him that he hadn't spent much time working this out, only that it was Door's quest, and he wanted to help her, and unity seemed, after all, quite a good idea, like loyalty and friendship and peace. After a lengthy pause, as they walked quickly through down the hill, he said exactly that.

The marquis laughed. "Assuming I accepted that as the truth, why would I want to get involved?"

"Isn't that enough of a reason?"

"No," said the marquis.

"No…?"

"Let me spell it out for you in words of one syllable," the marquis said. "What's in it for me?"

"A favor, maybe?"

"You already owe me, Richard," he said. "I wouldn't go racking up much more of a debt."

They'd come by this time to the Thames, and by the dock, Richard could see a tall ship moored under Tower Bridge. He squinted. Through the moonlight, it looked as if it were manned by sailors in Tudor dress.

"What's that ship?" he asked.

"The Golden Hind," the marquis replied. "We're going to Deptford Creek."

The edges of London Below are soft, marshy places, that blur into one another; if he knows the way, a man can follow the dull, muffled sound of his own footsteps through the dampness of a pea soup fog, and into a rainswept Roman soldiers' encampment by the Tamesis, or perhaps float down the Saxon's Hollow Stream onto the grey, hopeless canal into which empties the unthinkable dirt and refuse of the notorious Fleet Prison, which was closed in 1846. Like water, time is constantly recycling through London Below, and it's best not to think too hard about where it has been, or who has used it for what before it has reached you.

It's also a good idea to be careful where you step, because there is often no telling where you might land up – somewhere lost, or forgotten, or some place that never existed at all.

The marquis eyed Richard closely, as they disembarked from the ship at west of Greenwich in the early, cold false light of dawn. He seemed to be taking it all in his stride – the journey, the oddly clean version of Drake's vessel (whether it was the replica or the real ship, no one was ever really sure and the sailors refused to tell), his own dismissal of the suggestion that they all band together -- but while the marquis was quite used to counting the grandchildren of chickens that hadn't yet hatched, Richard was still a relatively unknown quantity.

"Well, we're here," Richard said. "What are we doing?"

"We're not here," he replied. "We've barely begun."

"Is this going to take long?"

"Define long," the marquis said. He pulled out a small plastic lighter, and one of the feathers Blaise had given him. As Richard watched, he set it on fire. A terrible smell arose, and Richard stepped back, wincing. "That'll wake you up in the morning."

"I was already awake."

"I wasn't talking about you," said the marquis. "There they are." He pointed up to the sky, where five black dots could be faintly made out in the distance.

"The ravens," Richard said.

"You catch on quickly."

"Really?" Richard said, sounding unwillingly pleased.

"No," the marquis said. "Not really."

"Why do you need them?" he asked suspiciously. "What was the raven trying to tell me? Are there Raven-speakers, like Rat-speakers?"

"No," the marquis said. "Don't be stupid."

"I thought they had clipped wings anyway," Richard said, watching them fly closer. "If all six leave the Tower, England falls. Or something."

"Maybe someone forgot to tell them."

"I feel like there's something going on that I don't know about."

"Really?" the marquis said. "Imagine that."

They stood in silence for a few minutes.

"Why do you need them, though?" Richard asked. "At least tell me that."

"Insurance," the marquis said. "I always like to have some. Besides, it's their river, the Ravensbourne. Politeness is a virtue, after all."

When the ravens were circling overhead, the marquis set off down the river bank, towards the water. A small boat was moored there, with a punter standing in it – his bleached blond hair contrasting sharply with his dark skin. He was wearing a red biker's jacket.

"Got the price of the journey?" he asked the marquis, and then caught sight of Richard. "Oh, I didn't see you there. Get in."

Richard looked at him quizzically.

"Haven't got all day," the ferryman said.

"You heard the man, Richard," de Carabas said, and pushed him into the boat.

"Aren't you going to pay him?"

"You've got the Freedom of the City," said the marquis. "Remember?"

"And you?"

"Well," the marquis said, "being saddled with you has to have _some_advantages."

They moved with an aching slowness; Richard began to feel that they would have been substantially faster on foot. The early morning fog was rising off the water, and there was hardly any sound but the splash of water, and the rocking of the boat. It was boring, and damp and uncomfortable, especially as Richard actually began to be a bit seasick.

After what seemed like endless days or months or years, as Richard sat facing back the way they had come, deeply regretting that salmon sandwich, in the prow of the boat next to the silent marquis, and the silent ferryman, the boat finally came to a stop.

The marquis shoved him, and Richard struggled out of the boat, managing to wet himself up to the thigh in the process.

On the other hand, de Carabas, _naturally_, seemed to come out of the situation dry to the bone, and Richard couldn't help but glare. And then he saw it, carved into the bank of the river, a door, old and weathered and moss covered, leading, it seemed, straight into the hill, with a slight trickle of water coming out from underneath, feeding into the river where they stood. The ravens had settled on the hill above the door. He stared.

"Where _are_ we?" he asked, sputtering.

"Near Chislehurst," the marquis snapped. "Hurry up and help me get the door open."

"Chislehurst?" Richard repeated blankly. "Like where David Bowie played?"

Ignoring him, the marquis pulled at the great iron ring stuck into the door, and it pulled up. Looking inside, Richard could see that it was dark, dank, and smelled a bit like rotting eggs. "Ugh. We're going in there?"

"I am," the marquis said. "And if you want to find out what I'm doing, then so are you."

Richard sighed. "Okay, come on."

When the door had slammed shut behind them, it was completely and utterly dark. Then Richard heard a small clicking sound, and there was a small flicker of light, by the marquis' face, casting gruesome shadows on it.

"Come along then," he said, his teeth flashing again in that shark-like smile. The small light moved ahead, and Richard trudged along behind it, guided by the flame and the splash of the marquis' feet, cursing his own curiosity silently.

"I hope that lighter holds out," Richard said, after a long while.

"Indeed," he said. Then with a slight tinge of worry, "And that I know where I'm going."

Richard felt his heart sink into his stomach. "We're not lost, are we?"

"No," said the marquis, offended. "I know exactly where we are… it's where we're _going_ to be in a few minutes that's the question."

"Great," said Richard. "Fabulous."

"Look on the bright side," the marquis started.

"I would, but there is no bright side," Richard said. "It's all dark, except for your bloody lighter, which I have a feeling is going to run out any second now."

"Richard," the marquis sighed. "One would think you had no faith in me."

"I'm here, aren't I?"

The marquis laughed, and Richard watched the flame waver with it. "Tell me," he said, "how are you and the Lady Door getting along?"

"Well, I'm not sure what she's going to say when I disappear without a word, never to be heard from again, and people tell her I ran off with you."

"Aren't you?"

"I was joking," Richard said. The flame descended to about a third of its previous height, and Richard stopped short. "What are you doing?"

"Sitting," the marquis said. "It's been a long night, and I want a bit of a rest." The light went out, and Richard swallowed at the sudden, crushing darkness.

"Isn't it… a bit wet?"

"It is."

Richard shook his head and then, not seeing an alternative, sank down next to him, squelching unpleasantly in the cold, wet mud.

"So," the marquis went on, "you don't know what she'd say?"

"I was joking," Richard said again. "I haven't really run off with you."

"Haven't you?"

Richard blinked. "Well… not really."

"I can tell you what she would say," the marquis said, as if savoring a joke that Richard was too dim to understand.

"Oh?"

"Nothing," he said. "We look at things a bit differently down here."

"Down here?" Richard heard himself echo again, feeling as if his wits had gone begging.

"Below," the marquis said. "It's catch as catch can, you might say. After all, who's to say what happens in the dark?"

There was a long silence. "I would know," Richard said.

"But you would go back," the marquis said. "So it wouldn't matter. To her."

"Are you telling me the truth?"

"Of course," the marquis said. "Then again, I could be lying. How could you tell?"

"She said I could trust you."

The marquis laughed again. "I'm sure that's not all she said."

"As long as I don't turn my back on you."

"I suppose that could be arranged."

Richard felt his heart begin to pound furiously in his chest. Everything was mixed up, backwards, too slow and too fast, like a dream where your limbs don't obey you, but also somehow like the unreal lassitude of giving into the embrace of sleep. It was if he were coming down from a great height into a dark cavernous, oddly unexpected place of both warmth and nightmares, not quite sure if he were falling or floating.

"I don't know if I—"

"Richard, why did you come to find me in the Market?"

"Because—"

And then there was another body next to his, faceless and familiar, the way people are in dreams, the wet heat, the nip of sharp teeth, the swirl of a tongue, the catapulting, exultant, wrenching rush, as he spilled into that mocking, elegant mouth.

It seemed like years afterward when Richard came back to himself.

"I –" he began, then stopped, then started again. "I've –"

"Oh, please," the marquis groaned, "spare us your embarrassment. It's boring."

"Um," said Richard.

"Temple and Arch," the marquis said. "Are you _twelve_?"

Richard found himself laughing helplessly. "No," he said. "I'm not."

Abruptly, he heard the clicking noise from somewhere above his head, and then there was the small light. He blinked up at the marquis, who was looking down at him. "I don't know about you," he said, "but I feel quite refreshed. Shall we continue?"

Unable to think what else to do, he nodded, and struggled to his feet. By the time he was up, and had zipped his jeans, the marquis' light was quite some way ahead. When he had hurried down the tunnel, and caught up to him, he said, "Do you think you could tell me where we're going now?"

"I probably could, yes."

There was a pause, punctuated only by the splash of their feet. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"You just do that to be annoying, don't you?"

"Yes," the marquis said.

"What if I told you I'm not going any further without an explanation?"

"What if I told you I'd leave you here to rot in the dark?"

Caught somewhere between fury, frustration, and laughter, Richard said, "What if I told you I'd owe you a favor if you managed to communicate to me where we're going and what we're doing?"

"What does that make the tally now? Three? Four?"

"_Four_?!"

"Well, there was the affair with Islington, and then collecting you from your brief vacation to London Above… then, a few minutes ago in the tunnel, and now, giving you information, that makes four."

"_I do not owe you a favor for a blowjob._"

The marquis made a rebuking "tsk-tsk" noise. "Such language! Richard, I'm shocked."

"You weren't really doing that as a favor, were you?"

"Only joking," he said. "So, three then."

"Two," Richard returned. "Islington was a favor you were doing for Door."

"I did save your life along the way," he pointed out. "But I suppose that's not worth much. We'll call it two then."

Richard wavered between being offended and being pleased he'd won the negotiation, then decided that being pleased was less stressful. "Fine," he said. "Now tell me what we're doing."

"We're making our way to the Chislehurst Caves."

"I'd gathered as much. Why?"

"To find one particular cave."

"Do I have to pry this out of you one letter at a time?"

De Carabas held up a small, jagged shard of chalky stone, with a faint whitish glow. "This is a piece of the cave; we're going to return it."

"Okay, but why?"

The marquis slanted his eyes at him. "There's someone sleeping there. We're going to be his alarm clock."

"Who is it?"

"He's a student of the man we met at the Market."

"Blaise?" Richard asked.

"Right."

"As in Merlin's master, Blaise?"

"Right."

"We're going to go and wake up Merlin? Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack," the marquis said.

"I don't believe this."

"That's your prerogative, but I've answered your question, and you now owe me a second favor."

"Merlin? _Really_?" He could remember reading the stories of King Arthur and his knights, seeing Camelot – he was just about ready to see the kindly, bearded old man, sleeping in the cave. He could even see the pointy wizard's hat, and he felt a laugh gurgle up out of him, involuntarily.

"Quiet now, Richard. This is where the tricky part starts." The marquis veered off into a branching of the tunnel, and Richard realized that they were no longer walking in mud, but on an uneven slippery surface, which must be the beginning of the chalk mine.

The marquis extinguished the light.

"What did you do that for?" Richard hissed, as he stumbled and caught himself with a wrench.

"I don't want it to see the flame," the marquis breathed.

"It? _It_?!"

"Richard? Shut up."

Once the chalk hills of England were a warm shallow sea, filled with teeming life. Millions of tiny creatures lived and died there, and their skeletons collected to form the white cliffs that men have mined for centuries. Every chalk mine is a bone yard.

In this particular cavern, if one looks at the right time, one can find mushrooms from the 1930s growing in the dark, or a lost child from World War II, huddling behind a rock. Leftover vibrations from rock concerts still caress the walls.

But there's also a monster guarding the gate, a great skeleton of a giant swimming lizard, with a thighbone the size of a writing desk. And if it's awakened, it's generally fairly hungry.

As they crept along the pathway, the marquis could hear a distant roaring, like the pounding of waves. "Richard," he whispered.

"What?"

"Do you have your knife?"

"Yes," Richard hissed back.

"Good. Now do exactly as I tell you. Water is going to fill this cavern. Hold your knife in one hand. Hold on to my hand with the other, and whatever you do, _don't let go_. When the lizard appears, stab it with your knife. Leave the rest to me."

"The rest? _Are you crazy_?"

The marquis grinned at him. "It's been suggested." He looked away down the tunnel, and then turned back to Richard. "Here it comes."

"I think I hate you," Richard said helplessly as he gripped his knife and seized the marquis' hand.

"That's all right," the marquis said. "Oh, one more thing."

"What for god's sake?!"

"Hold your breath!"

Richard sucked in a huge gulp of air, just before the water came rushing over them; his eyes stung from the salt, and he kicked furiously trying to get to the surface but to no avail. He realized that he could see; the marquis was holding the piece of stone in one hand, and it was glowing brightly now, even underwater, enough to illuminate the cave, and then Richard could see the great shark-like shape swim past him.

Scared out of his mind, he stabbed up and out as hard as he could, and then the water was stained with a dark, spreading rust. Then he could hold his breath no longer, and he was swallowing burning water that scraped through his nose and throat, and it was all pain as he thrashed furiously.

And then they were on the dry chalk again, as if the water had never been, and Richard's face was up against the rough wall, scraped and raw, and he could taste the ashy taste in his mouth. His knuckles were bruised and his knife was buried to the hilt in the wall of the cavern. He stepped back, and saw the outline of the ichthyosaurus etched in wall.

He turned to face the marquis, who was behind him, and whose hand he was still clinging to. He let go. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" he shouted.

"Probably," the marquis said, and smiled at him. "You'd better get your knife out of the wall."

Richard thought about punching him in the face, and decided it was too much effort. He reached forward to pull the knife from the wall, and was surprised when it came away easily.

"The sword in the stone?" the marquis murmured.

"Just shut up," Richard said weakly, and sank down to sit on the ground.

"It's almost over," de Carabas said gently, and in the hole in the wall that Richard's knife had made, he placed the missing piece of stone.

It slipped back into the hole as if it had always been there, and then there was the beginning of a grinding noise, as if the very bowels of the earth were being disturbed. There was a wrongness that Richard could feel, vibrating through his bones, as if he'd been broken apart, and put back together inside out.

A crack had opened around the place where Richard's knife had been. It looked like the crack was glowing.

Richard stared up at him. "You wanted me to come with you," he said, finally.

"Yes," the marquis said.

"Why didn't you just ask me?"

The marquis looked at him, expressionless. Then without answering, he turned to the wall, and pushed at it. It opened like a secret passageway in a story, and suddenly, Richard was conscious of light and noise and music, and still the waves of stomach churning nausea, breaking over him, like the seasickness but a million times worse. "Come on," the marquis said. "We go this way."

They walked through, and suddenly they were in a huge, vaulted space of glass and cast iron. People were walking around; women in huge dresses with bustles and buttons; men in frock coats and hats.

"What is this place?" Richard gasped.

"Crystal Palace," the marquis said. "We're going to catch a train."

"I don't understand."

"One would think, by now, Richard, you'd be used to opening doors."

"That's not me. That's Door. I don't--"

"Of course it's you," the marquis replied. "They do it best, the openers, but why do you think we all swear by Temple and Arch, Richard? This is what we do. We blur the boundaries, we go through the soft places, we call things back. Nothing here is ever lost or forgotten, not really. Not gods. Not devils. Not imaginings. Anything anyone's dreamed up, it can all live here."

"But—"

"We've woken Merlin from his crystal cave, and now we'll ride the Palace Line across London Below towards Alexandra Palace."

"There is no Palace Line," Richard said feverishly.

"There is now," the marquis said. "Then we'll walk to Enfield Chase, and Camlet Moat. And there will once again be a king crowned in London Below."

"But Merlin – why do I feel so --?"

"What were you imagining? A wizard in a pointy hat? Why do you think they put him in the cave in the first place? Gods and devils, Richard. Didn't you know? We have both. We've woken one. If you want the other as well, we'll have to ride the train."

"I don't – why did you do--"

"It was what you wanted," the marquis said reasonably. "You wanted to unite London Below, you and the Lady Door."

"But not like—"

"You can't unite without something to fight against. It doesn't work like that."

Richard stared at him. "I trusted you."

"You let me get behind you," said the marquis, gently.

"Why did you do it? Just because Blaise told you to?"

"Oh, no," the marquis said. "Of course not. We've woken Merlin; I'd say he now owes me a _significant_ favor. Which means whoever wins, Richard, I'm doing just fine. And now if you're ready, it's time to board. We wouldn't want you to be at a disadvantage. Any more than you already are. Five ravens have already left the tower, and I've got another feather. You don't want England to fall, do you?"

"I won't get on the train," Richard said. "I'm done listening to you."

"Oh, I don't think that's true," the marquis said kindly; his sharp, knife edged smile flashing bright against the darkness of his face. "After all, you owe me a favor. Or two."

Richard looked at him, felt the obligation tighten around him like a noose.

"This is the first," the marquis said.

"And what about the second?" Richard asked, taking a deep breath.

"I think I'll keep that one in reserve," the marquis said. He looked at Richard who was clenching his fists, and digging his nails into his palms. "I did warn you not to rack up a debt."

He stood there, helpless, and somewhere distantly, angrily, Richard thought how unfair it was that it was all so beautiful and so dangerous. This was London-in-the-dark, where fairy tales had sharp teeth, and he wasn't sure if he loved it or hated it or some complicated tangle of the two. "Why did you help us against the angel?" he ground out.

"Well for one thing," de Carabas said consideringly, "the angel didn't owe me a favor." He paused. "And for another… Islington wanted the game to stop. I'd rather it continued. More fun that way, don't you think? Just imagine Richard, someday, perhaps you'll be the one holding me at the point of a debt. Won't that be nice? You can look forward to it."

"Stop looking at me like that," he ordered furiously.

The marquis grinned. "Make me," he said.

Richard took one menacing step towards him.

"On the train," said the marquis. "Once we're on the train."

**Author's Note:**

> There is a story that says if the six Tower ravens leave the White Tower, England will fall. And there is indeed something that looks like an ichthyosaurus fossil in the Chislehurst Caves, which are a warren of chalk mines and purported "druid/roman/saxon caves" (unlikely) that comb the Underground near Bromley, but it's probably a fake. Enfield Chase does have a "Camlet Moat" but the chances of it having anything at all to do with King Arthur are vanishingly small. Drake's vessel, the Golden Hind, did once stand at Deptford Creek, where the Ravensbourne empties into the Thames, until it fell apart into its constituent bits. Evil!Merlin comes from the _Vulgate Merlin_, where he's the son of a devil and the student of Blaise. The Crystal Palace stood at Sydenham, until it burnt down in 1936; some have supposed that its abandoned railway station would have been the site of a projected Palace Line across the city to its counterpart, the Alexandra Palace. Distances, time, and currents, however, bear little or no resemblance to those of London Above.


End file.
